Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid

Learning

Zhanna Mikhailovna Moroz

, Lyudmila Viktorovna Kalyagina

Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Keywords: Continuing Education, Questionnaires, Blended Learning, Sustainable Development.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the issues of education in higher educational institutions in the interests of sustainable

development under conditions of self-isolation. The empirical study was conducted to identify the problems

that students had faced during the on-line learning. The authors analyzed the experience of distance learning

and they gave the quantity assessment of the prospects for the transition to blended learning. The paper

analyzes the assumption about the difficulty of adaptation of junior students of technical specialties to the full

acquisition of knowledge via the Internet, and it also determines the importance of hybrid methods of

conducting classes.

1 INTRODUCTION

At the World Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,

the basic principles of sustainable development were

developed for the first time, which defined the basic

directions of education for sustainable development

and the trends in the new approaches to education

(ESD).

The heads of all countries unanimously adopted

"Agenda 21 (Agenda 21)" at the World Earth

Summit, where in chapter 36 "Education for

sustainable development" there has been stated that "

education is the foundation of sustainable

development" (Coptyugue, 1992).

Paragraph 12 notes that "the implications of the new

understanding of "education for sustainable

development" for the education systems are serious

and involve the significant rethinking of the

importance of the formal education systems in many

countries, which are no longer considered to be

acceptable to meet the needs of the society and

production (traditionally, the goal of education was

mainly to transfer knowledge, skills and values)".

Education is considered as a lifelong process that

must not only be corrected, but also changed and

transformed, or in other words, it is necessary to move

from "for life” education to "through life" education.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0041-8477

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0617-1017

Аgenda 21 sets out the basic principles of education

for sustainable development which are based on:

 universality, continuity and informality of

education;

 interdisciplinary approach;

 teaching methods based on the transition from

teaching to joint active cognition, the

development of systematic thinking and skills;

 partner interaction between the teacher and the

student, joint discussion and informed

decision-making;

 partnership of education and business;

 comprehensive support by the state and the

society.

A new type of education that forms the world

outlook within the framework of sustainable

development includes the following trends:

 variety of forms and methods;

 continuity of different levels of programs;

 the relationship between the programs of the

same level as well as the programs of different

levels;

 adaptability;

 consideration of the local characteristics;

 unity of comprehensive and vocational

education; - practicality,

Moroz, Z. and Kalyagina, L.

Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid Learning.

DOI: 10.5220/0010669700003223

In Proceedings of the 1st International Scientiﬁc Forum on Sustainable Development of Socio-economic Systems (WFSDS 2021), pages 427-432

ISBN: 978-989-758-597-5

427

 aimed at solving the problems of production

and society, taking into account the local,

regional and national characteristics.

2 CONTINUITY OF EDUCATION

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE

PANDEMIC

The conditions of self-isolation during the pandemic

accelerated the transition to the on-line learning using

distant learning technologies, which proves the

relevance of the adopted theses of Agenda 21 in

practice. The new way of life and the challenges of

the time dictate the need to introduce changes to the

educational programs, the development of advanced

and up-to-date methods of lifelong learning in the

interests of sustainable development.

In 2020-2021, the alternative means of

communication and interaction between teachers and

students were developed, in most cases, the Internet-

based technologies replaced the traditional classes

with the use of blackboards and chalk. Digital

learning has become the new format of education,

which allowed us to practice the skills of instant

response to changes, to act in a situation of

uncertainty, to be flexible.

During the pandemic, various approaches to

distance learning were used: the language

applications, the virtual learning, the video

conferencing tools, and the software for on-line

learning. In particular, in the process of the

continuous educational process, the on-line

conferences via Zoom or Skype platforms, the on-line

training via Moodle platforms were actively used.

One can say that during the period of self-isolation,

the electronic educational environment was created

and tested, including a wide range of tools: lectures

with feedback, webinars, video lectures, logic

schemes, adaptive test trainings, testing and

certification programs, online consultations, debate

tournaments, quizzes, on-line learning, on-line

meetings with interesting people, remote creative

laboratories, on-line exams, synchronous and

asynchronous interaction of participants of the

educational process and the formation of the

electronic portfolio of students. The access to the

electronic educational resources was carried out

through the student's "Personal Account" on the

website and in the automated information system

Platonus. At the same time, various services for

interactive visualization began to develop. For

example, the Padlet service allows you to draw, share

files, show pictures and texts simultaneously, which

resembles an on-line whiteboard. Padlet allows you

to work both in real time, to illustrate and put down

ideas during discussions, and to use the service at the

data storage location. The Figma service allows you

to create complex structures and draw diagrams,

which is important for designers and architects. It is

convenient to organize your work in Trello, since you

can use the Trello service to assign tasks and mark the

performer, give comments, store files, give urls, set

reminders, manage multiple projects and have

personal files.

Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, which

is the branch of the Irkutsk State University of

Railway Transport, has developed the instructions for

the work with remote access to the UIS: instructions

for checking your computer for malware, instructions

for using corporate mail via the WEB interface,

instructions for creating a group conference in

Microsoft Teams, instructions for setting up a VPN

connection on Windows 7.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The authors of the article conducted an empirical

study to identify the problems the students had faced

during the on-line learning, to analyze the experience

gained and the prospects for transition to blended

training. The first-year students of Krasnoyarsk

Institute of Railway Transport of technical specialties

of full-time and part-time departments were the

respondents. The hypothesis of the study was to test

the assumption about the difficulty of adapting the

junior students of technical specialties to the full

acquisition of knowledge via the Internet in a higher

educational institution, as well as to confirm the

exceptional importance of traditional methods of

conducting classes in specially equipped classrooms

of the educational institution. It was important to

evaluate the students ' experience of on-line learning

and their readiness to come over to blended learning.

The anonymous handout questionnaire was used as

the method of empirical research, based on the

continuous classroom survey of the first-year students

of the "Train Traffic Support Systems" and

"Operation of Transport and Technological

Processes" specialties. This method allowed us to

interview the sufficient number of the respondents in

a short time for the pilot study. Secondly, the

anonymous nature of the survey allows us to count on

the answers of the respondents to be frank, and

thirdly, the questionnaire method is convenient from

the point of view of processing the results.

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The special questionnaire has been developed in

accordance with the established rules of the study.

The questionnaire had 20 questions, 12 of them with

the answer options as "yes "or "no", which excluded

the possibility of ambiguous interpretation of the

question. The other 8 questions offered to evaluate the

events according to the ten-point system. The

explanation was given for all the questions that

clarified the meaning of the special terms used and

the foreign words that could be incomprehensible to

the respondents.

Before starting the survey, the goals and

significance of the research results were explained to

the students.

4 RESULTS

All the questions in the questionnaire can be divided

into three groups. The first group of the questions

identified the difficulties the students had faced

during the on-line learning, the second group of the

questions analyzed the emotional state of the students

during the on-line learning, the third group of the

questions assessed the experience of learning during

self-isolation and the prospects for transition to

blended learning. A relatively small number of the

questions allows you to analyze the answers for each

group of the questions separately.

It turned out that the attitude to the on-line learning

among the first-year students of technical specialties

of full-time and part-time forms of training was

different. For example, 43% of the full-time students

had problems with transition to the on-line learning

using remote technologies for the following reasons:

difficulty of mastering the remote technologies

(37%), difficulty of the work with lectures (28%) in

DLS, difficulty of the work with laboratory work

(56%) in DLS, difficulty of the work with practical

tasks (35%) in DLS, problems with the Internet (9%),

lack of a computer or laptop (7%). At the same time,

the part-time students had significantly fewer

problems in transition to the on-line learning; only

35% of the part-time students experienced difficulties

in transition to the remote technologies. However, for

the part-time students, all the difficulties of transition

to the remote learning were due to technical problems

with the Internet, which is probably explained by the

fact that most part-time students are from the rural

areas.

According to the evaluation done by the first-year

students of the full-time department, mathematics,

physics, history and physical education were the most

problematic subjects for the distance learning (50%),

while the majority of the students believe that they

have adapted to the on-line learning (89%). For the

full-time students, Zoom is the most convenient

service for conducting the on-line learning (44%),

Discord was approved only by 30% of students. At

the same time, 93% of the part-time students have

chosen Zoom.

Table 1: Students evaluation of traditional, on-line, and

blended learning models (% of the number of respondents).

Evaluation Traditional On-line Blende

oints 23 21 42

oints 0 7 7

8 points 14 21 7

7 points 7 0 7

6 points 28 14 14

oints 28 36 23

The study showed that the students did not

experience stress during the transition to the on-line

learning, 92% of students felt calm, 8% of students

were afraid of not having time to complete all the

tasks done by the teachers and not to pass the exam.

The need for live communication with teachers is

more necessary for full-time students studying

technical disciplines (89%) than for students studying

social and humanitarian disciplines (11%). The part-

time students of technical specialties are less

dependent on a teacher (62%), but everyone needs to

communicate with their classmates. At the same time,

the majority of students of the part-time department

received support from their teachers during the period

of self-isolation (79%).

The part-time students (84%) experienced more

comfort during the on-line learning than the full-time

students (74%). The result is obvious and it can be

explained by the fact that the part-time students have

more free time both for their work and for their

personal life. As a rule, the part-time students are

mature people who, in addition to studying, are still

busy at work, and they have families. At the same

time, the majority of the full – time students are

school graduates, they do not work and do not have

their families.

The graph in Figure 1 shows the students answers

to the questions that have two possible answers-

yes/no. The questions with the point score are not

shown in Figure 1, and they were analyzed separately.

Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid Learning

429

Figure 1. Summary graph of the student responses.

The points were used to evaluate the various

learning models, the choice of the educational

platforms, the labor costs for preparing teacher

assignments during the on-line and classroom

learning, and the emotional state of the students

during distance learning at the period of self-

isolation. The answers of the students of different

forms of education to such questions are given in this

article.

It should be noted that the labor costs for preparing

the teacher assignments during the on-line and

classroom learning did not change for the majority of

the students (62%), while 38% of students noted the

decrease in the labor costs during transition to the on-

line learning.

The majority of the students of all forms of

education liked the experience gained with the use of

distance technologies (89%) and many of the students

are ready for "blended learning" (50%).

The positive point is that the attendance of the on-

line lectures has increased in comparison with the

classroom ones, the "feedback" has deepened, which

allowed the teacher to control the involvement of the

students in the classroom. On-line learning is

asynchronous, allowing you to learn anytime,

anywhere. Students and teachers do not spend time

and money to get to the place of study every day,

which allows you to get more free time without

compromising the quality of learning and even

strengthening it in some cases. The on-line learning

allows students to study at their own individual pace

by re-reading, skipping or speeding up their

concentration at their own discretion. On-line

learning requires more independent study of the task,

which has the positive effect on personal

development, since without the support of a teacher,

the student learns the material better.

5 DISCUSSION OF THE

RESULTS

Foreign studies show that students memorize by 25-

60% more information during the on-line learning,

compared to 8-10% when in the classroom. 81% of

US college students agreed that digital learning

technologies help them improve their grades

(Adesoye, Davis, Del Calvo and et al., 2021).

In the study conducted by the University of

California, the results showed that on-line learning

contributes to solving the climate change problems;

in particular, conducting classes in the online format

for 100 students led to the reduction of CO2

emissions by 5-10 tons per semester (Burns, 2020).

It should be noted that the success of on-line

education primarily depends on access to the Internet.

The gap in inequality of opportunity is observed both

between countries and between people with different

income levels within a country. For example, in

Switzerland, Norway, and Austria, 95% of students

have a computer, while in Indonesia this percentage

is 34%, according to the OECD (Bao, 2020). The

students who do not have the technical capabilities for

digital learning lag behind their peers, which leads to

inequality in knowledge acquisition and social

stratification of the society (Budenkova, 2016).

A serious disadvantage of on-line education is

social isolation, since educational institutions are

centers of social activity and interaction of people,

which are necessary for development and learning.

Young people are deprived of the opportunity to meet

and socialize with their friends, which can lead to

stress and depression (Novikova, E.S., 2018).

At the same time, in the classroom, you can have a

contact with each student and observe how the

student copes with the task, it is easier to focus on the

full-time lecture during distance learning, attention is

scattered on establishing contact with students

creating the right atmosphere in the on-line audience

(Lebedeva, Okhotnikova and Potapova, 2016).

Remote work requires more self-discipline and self-

organization. In traditional mode, there is the general

information flow in the classroom, but the remote

student communicates in the classroom mostly with

their teacher (Kucher, 2017). As a result, only the

teacher has the full picture.

It is unproductive to conduct a number of

disciplines in Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway

transport remotely; in particular, it is impossible to

conduct physical education classes without the

necessary equipment. The students of engineering,

construction and many other fields of study cannot

acquire the necessary skills if they do not practice

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430

their knowledge. It is impossible to teach and acquire

professional skills in locksmithing, welding,

electrical installation, turning skills, to master the

mechanisms of repair and construction works,

technical operation and repair of tracks without

practical training, experimental installations and

specially equipped laboratories.

Being at home environment, it is more difficult for

a student to concentrate, and his motivation decreases

due to the lack of control and the competitive

environment, which can negatively affect academic

performance.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that during the

remote learning process, there was the need to

develop a new combined model of the educational

process, based on the preparation of special distance

programs that contribute to the continuation of high-

quality learning in the on-line mode. Both students

and teachers believe that remote learning methods can

complement the traditional learning process.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The paper presents the empirical study among the

full-time and part-time students of technical

disciplines in the form of a questionnaire, identifies

the basic approaches to distance learning and defines

the electronic educational environment, systematizes

the advantages and disadvantages of the on-line

learning, and identifies ways to develop new

educational technologies.

The authors compare the traditional approach to

learning using whiteboards and chalk, specially

equipped laboratories, and distance education using

on-line classrooms and services for interactive

visualization in real time. The quantitative assessment

of the type of educational services chosen by the

students is given.

As a result of comparing the basic approaches to the

provision of educational services, the shortcomings of

the on-line learning are revealed:

 the lack of the Internet and the computer

creates a gap in opportunities for obtaining

knowledge, increases the social stratification of

society;

 social isolation, lack of communication can

lead to stress and depression;

 reduced motivation in the absence of control

and a competitive environment;

 difficulty in concentrating at home;

 lack of special equipment for obtaining

professional skills.

The advantages of the on-line training are

identified:

 wide audience and increased attendance;

 distance and comfort;

 economy of time and money for getting to

theUniversity for students of all forms of

education, as well as economy of money for

living in another city for part-time students;

 asynchronous learning (classes at anytime,

anywhere);

 personal development of students, contributing

to an independent approach to the study of the

material, learning, the development of

responsibility and initiative, the management

of time resources and the formation of critical

thinking.

 On the scale of the national education transition

to blended learning the following effects were

obtained:

 the possibility of optimization and

improvement of teaching processes;

 adaptation of educational material in a more

convenient form for perception and

presentation of knowledge, which saves

students ' time on notes

 savings were obtained by eliminating

unnecessary time losses and financial costs for

conducting classroom lessons in an educational

institution;

 development of information technologies,

methods of data transmission, knowledge

visualization;

 improving computer and information skills;

 ability to teach more students;

 active involvement of students in the learning

process and the possibility of a broad

discussion of the acquired knowledge and skills

in the learning process.

In general, we can say that the experience of the on-

line training with the use of remote technologies

obtained during the period of self-isolation was

positive. The majority of the students noted the high

efficiency of blended learning and they are ready to

use the new educational model in the near future.

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